(Randy's Perspective)
Twins 3, Astros 0
August 28, 2015
Growing up in Anderson, South Carolina, I watched a thousand televised baseball and football games from Metropolitan Stadium in Minneapolis. It was the Twins and the great Harmon Kellibrew and the Vikings with their Purple People Eaters defense and Fran Tarkenton, a Georgia boy, playing quarterback. I watched them all from The Met.
Yes, I know that's spiffy Target Field in the picture at the top of the page, which is two stadiums removed from Metropolitan. But I just want to say that I finally stepped foot on the site where I saw all those Twins victories and those great Vikings teams playing in minus 30 degree temperatures. (Yes, I know, it probably wasn't really -30, but it might as well have been.)
My point is that some of these far northern destinations are trips into a sports memory bank for a boy from the Deep South.
But here's the kicker. Metropolitan Stadium, which the Twins and Vikings abandoned in 1981, is now the Mall of America. Sad in a way. There's a replica of home plate at The Met. It's imbedded in the floor of the Sponge Bob section of the amusement park in the center of the mall. There's also an odd-looking red seat stuck into a wall above the water ride. The seat signifies where Harmon Kellibrew hit a 520-foot home run, the farthest home run in the stadium's history.
I suppose I should be happy that at least someone remembered. Sponge Bob, indeed.
Before describing Target Field, I should also mention that I have a jaded memory of the stadium between Metropolitan and Target. It was the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. And of all the memories that place offered to Twins and Vikings fans, it was the famous (infamous in my mind) 1991 home run by Krby Puckett that I - lifelong Braves fan - will never get over.
Puckett pounded Charlie Liebrandt's slow pitch in the 11th inning over the left-center field wall to extend the Braves-Twins World Series to a seventh game. The next night - and it should come as no surprise to a Braves fan - Jack Morris pitched a 10-inning shutout, and the Twins beat the Braves 1-0.
The Morris game was probably the greatest pitching performance I can remember. It overshadowed the fact that John Smoltz shut out the Twins for nine innings.
Two one-run extra inning games. Twins win, Braves lose. Now that was some stress.
Anyway, I was sitting next to a Twins season-ticket holder during our game at Target Field. He could recite the action from the final two games of that World Series almost pitch-for-pitch.
But when I asked him if he was a season ticket holder back in the 90's, he said, "Hell no. I wouldn't go to the Metrodome. The place was a disgrace."
So, about the "now" ballpark: Target Field. It's a gem of a ballpark. Penny and I walked around the stadium, upper and lower tiers, and the sight lines are great. According to Penny, they're not so fine in the upper decks, but she's become a snob about bad (too high) seats. "What's the point of sitting in the stratosphere?" That's her question. (And I'm with her on that.)
In the lower levels, however, there are great seats everywhere.
The atmosphere was good, too. It's Friday night, the kids are back in school, but there were close to 30,000 fans on hand to see the Twins try to hang in there in the wild card race.
And the Twins won 3-0. Two RBI by Nunez, one by Hunter, Gibson pitched into the eighth, and the Twins dreams of a Wild Card berth are alive.
The first-place-in-the-West Astros loaded the based with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to make it interesting, but they couldn't score.
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| This was our view all night long. Nice park, we just couldn't see home plate. |
Penny touched on this in her blog, and she showed great restraint to not say more. The soap box is about stadium vendors. I'll risk sounding like a "whiner" as I write this.
Let me set the table by saying we purchased excellent tickets, 12 rows behind the Twins dugout. Fabulous seats. This is our vacation, I should add.
So, from our excellent seats, all night long we had vendors standing in the aisles directly in our seats-to-home-plate line of vision. I counted more than 20 people in our section that had the same sight line as Penny and me.
Now, let me interject that I know vendors are part of the ballpark experience. They yell, they crack lame jokes, they hawk their stuff. ... And they don't block everyone's view. ... But there is also etiquette - or, if there no longer is, there should be. A vendor should have the decency to understand that when the game is on, he (or she) should crouch his or her ass down - at least some of the time. We tried leaning forward, left, right ... nothing helped. And the vendors came in waves.
In the third inning, I took a trip to the Customer Service booth to ask what the vendor etiquette policy is. A manager was summoned. His answer: "Our vendors are supposed to be conscious of fans and not interrupt their enjoyment of the game." I said ok - then added that that scenario ain't happening.
He gave me his card and asked if I would call him on his cell the next time a vendor got in the way.
I went back to my seat, and the dialog between manager and fan(s) got going. Penny and I - really, I promise, we weren't trying to be jerks - started snapping picture after picture of vendors standing in the way. And we texted them to our manager/friend.
He responded several times with apologies, and they actually did a little better for an inning or two. Then the circus started again.
I didn't get a picture of this, but on one occasion Eduardo Escobar slammed a double into the gap, and all I saw from my expensive seat was a pitch disappearing behind a vendor. Then I heard "Crack!" - and the next thing I saw was Escobar running to first from behind the vendor's uniform. It was as if Escobar was running on stage from behind the stage-right curtain. ... And the vendor never turned his head at any time toward the playing field. (I would call that a safety issue in this day of flying foul balls and bats and no protective screens.)
Ok, enough of the curmudgeon stuff.
On to the next park.
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